This healthy peanut butter cookies recipe is so tasty and easy to make by hand with just 7 ingredients.
My go-to recipe for when I’m craving a batch of warm, delicious, and slightly-healthier cookies…stat. ♡
These peanut butter cookies are always here to save the day. They’re wonderfully low fuss with just 10 minutes of prep time and only require 7 basic ingredients that are likely already hanging out in your pantry. They’re naturally gluten-free and dairy-free and made with a chewy oatmeal base. There’s no mixer or chill time required here. And even without the usual flour and butter, these peanut butter cookies are still downright delicious.
Feel free to stir some chocolate chips, nuts, or other add-ins to the dough if you’d like. And I definitely recommend a little sprinkle of flaky sea salt for a crunchy finish.
Let’s bake some cookies together!
Healthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ingredients
Here are a few notes about the ingredients you will need to make this healthy peanut butter cookies recipe:
- Natural creamy peanut butter: This recipe was developed with natural creamy peanut butter made from 100% peanuts. (The consistency of natural peanut butter varies significantly from traditional peanut butter.) As always, be sure to give your jar of natural pb a good stir before adding it to the recipe.
- Old fashioned oats: Old fashioned oats (aka “rolled” oats) will serve as the base for these cookies. If you want to make this recipe gluten-free, be sure to check labels to ensure that your oats are certified gluten-free.
- Eggs: We will use eggs to help bind all of the ingredients together.
- Brown sugar: I typically make this recipe with light brown sugar, but other forms of granulated sugar may work well too.
- Baking soda: Baking soda will serve as our leavening agent to help the cookie dough rise.
- Vanilla extract: A hint of vanilla extract brings out the best of the peanut butter flavor.
- Salt: And finally, we will use fine sea salt in the cookie dough to bring out the best of all of those flavors. Then I also highly recommend sprinkling a pinch of flaky sea salt on the cookies after baking.
- (Optional) Chocolate chips or nuts: Feel free to also add in a handful of semisweet chocolate chips or chopped nuts (such as pecans or walnuts) if you would like!
Peanut Butter Cookie Tips
Before we get to the full recipe below, here are a few additional tips to keep in mind when making these peanut butter cookies:
- Use natural peanut butter. Again, this recipe was developed using natural peanut butter, which you can either purchase at the store or make homemade. The texture/consistency will not be the same if traditional peanut butter is used.
- Save time with a cookie scoop. You’re totally welcome to just use a spoon to scoop the batter into roughly 2-tablespoon balls. But if you’d like to save time, a medium cookie scoop makes measuring and scooping the batter a breeze.
- Be sure to flatten the cookies slightly. This batter doesn’t rise and spread very much on its own, so I recommend patting the cookies down slightly before baking.
Recipe Variations
Here are a few additional variations that you are welcome to try with this recipe:
- Add cocoa powder: Add 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder to the batter if you would like to make it more chocolatey.
- Add cinnamon: Add 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the batter if you would like a hint of cinnamon flavor.
- Use different chocolate chips: Use any other favorite kinds of baking chips (i.e. butterscotch, white chocolate, peanut butter, Heath bar chips, M&Ms, etc) in place of semisweet chocolate chips.
More Cookie Recipes
Looking for more delicious cookie recipes to try? Here are a few of our faves:
- The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gingerbread Cookies
- Brown Sugar Cookies
- Peanut Butter Blossoms
- Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Linzer Cookies
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Yield: About 15 cookies 1x
Description
This tasty healthy peanut butter cookies recipe is quick and easy to make by hand with just 7 ingredients.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup natural creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- optional: 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chopped nuts
- flaky sea salt, for topping
Instructions
- Prep oven and baking sheet. Heat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix the dough. In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs and brown sugar together until smooth. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over the top of the mixture and stir until combined. Add in the vanilla, peanut butter, and stir until combined. Add in the oats (and chocolate chips or nuts, if using) and stir until evenly combined.
- Scoop the dough. Use a medium (2 tablespoon) cookie scoop to scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Gently press down the dough balls to slightly flatten the tops, since they will not spread much while baking.
- Bake. Bake for 10 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and sprinkle each cookie with a small pinch of flaky sea salt. Let the cookies cool for at least 5 minutes.
- Serve. Serve warm and enjoy!
Notes
Storage instructions: Cookies can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 3 months.
These are so delicious! I have made them three times in the past week, haha. They are great for the holidays and for my gluten-free family to enjoy :) I love the low amount of sugar and the protein from peanut butter too. The first time I made them I realized, after I cracked four eggs, that I did not have some of the ingredients so I used regular flour instead of oats and white sugar with molasses instead of brown sugar and they turned out great! Best healthy cookie recipe I’ve ever tried, thanks for sharing!!
I made these using homemade gingerbread pecan butter from Fannetastic Food recipe and they were delish! Great texture and flavor.
Best cookies that I have ever made! You can not even tell that it is oatmeal in them, they are moist and soft and taste great!
Recipe looks fabulous! Just as a side note, if it is to be made for those with Celiac Disease that require gluten free, the oats to be used have to be Certified Gluten Free Oats, otherwise is not fully gluten-free and not Celiac safe.
Yes! I was checking your blog each day for this recipe after seeing the cookies on Instagram. I just made my first batch and love them!
Just made a big batch of these to surprise my husband. While the taste is absolutely awesome they are quite dry! I don’t think it’s worth eating them, what went wrong? Followed the recipe very meticulously!
Oh no, sorry to hear that. Did you maybe use traditional peanut butter instead of natural?
No I got some all natural, 100% peanuts peanut butter. I would like to try again but not sure what to change…
After some Googling i may have found the problem. Living in the Netherlands “brown sugar” means something different here than in any english speaking country. The sugar we have here attracts a lot of moisture making the cookies very cake like already but also makes the batter very liquid which lead to me adding some extra oats because I could not scoop it. Results: not so good. Would you recommend using granulated, castor or cane sugar instead?
We just made a batch…and I wish we had tripled it! These were so good!!! The texture is definitely a little different than flour-based cookies, but we loved them and ate every last one. Can’t wait to make the next batch soon!
These are so simple, you think ‘why didn’t I think of that!?’ and so delicious, you wonder ‘what witchcraft is this!?’
They might just be genius.
This sound perfect for sharing with neighbors old and new! Anxiously awaiting a shipment of gluten-free oats to arrive, putting these cookies on top of my list to make.
We just pulled our first batch out of the oven and they are AMAZING!!! Can’t wait to share them with our gluten-free relatives this Thanksgiving too.